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Never Forgotten.

McKissack, Patricia (author).

The Dillons illustrated the late Virginia Hamilton’s classics The People Could Fly (1985) and Many Thousand Gone (1993), both of which told the stories and history of Africans captured and brought across the ocean as slaves. Now, in accessible free verse, McKissack writes from the viewpoint of the Africans left behind, who can only imagine what happens to those who are “taken” and never heard from again. The focus is on one father, the widower blacksmith Dinga, who raises his beloved son, Musafa, with the help of the Mother Elements: Earth, Fire, Water, and Wind. Then one day, Musafa is gone forever; he has become one of the Taken. Unable to stop the attackers, Earth and Fire report to Dinga that Musafa has become one of the captives, and Water follows Musafa’s ship through the horror of the Middle Passage. Later, Wind travels to America and reports back to Dinga that he has found Musafa (now called Moses) in Charleston, where he lives as a blacksmith’s gifted apprentice. The dramatic, thickly outlined acrylic-and-watercolor illustrations extend the story’s magical realism and intensify the anguish and grief in the words. Both words and images come together in a conclusion that brings hope, with the promise of freedom and Musafa’s powerful resolve never to forget his roots: “I learn by reaching back with one hand. And stretching forward with the other.”